THE VOICE I'M HEARING
BY
VICKI LANE
I have waited most of my life for God Almighty to speak unto to me – to maybe lean out from a dark thundercloud and roar down a mighty command, or to talk in tongues of fire from a bright red maple in the fall, or maybe whisper in my ear on a still and starry night. I have listened and prayed and listened some more but He ain’t spoke, not once. Just now, I think as I lay in my hidey hole near the springhouse and hark to the cruel sound of the whip, the weeping of the women, and the whimper of Aunt Lolie’s babe, just now would be a good time for Him to commence.
***
This
is the voice I’m hearing these days –
the voice of a mountain girl in Madison County, NC, caught between the various
factions during the Civil War – “the Late Unpleasantness” as an aunt used to
say. My mountain county was divided – there were few slave owners and many
folks wanted no part of either side, North or South. Some enlisted for the Confederacy;
some fled to nearby Tennessee where Union troops could be found; many simply
stayed home, trying to avoid conscription by either side.
My
county avoided the big battles. But the war took its toll in other ways and the
Shelton Laurel Massacre is still remembered around here.
It
began, according to the histories, in January
of 1863, when fifty armed and desperate men from the community of Shelton
Laurel (also known as Sodom) entered the county seat of Marshall in search of
the essential salt which they, as suspected Unionists, had not been allowed to
buy. They ransacked stores and plundered homes -- even pounding up the stairs
of Confederate Col. Allen's house to rip blankets from the beds of his sick
children.
Retaliation was swift; a few days later a troop of Confederate soldiers made its way to Shelton Laurel in search of the raiders. The result was the Shelton Laurel Massacre, in which 13 men and boys (some as young as 13 and 14; most, if not all, non-participants in the raid) were rounded up and executed. Women, some elderly, were tied to trees and whipped when they would not say where their men were; an infant was laid in the snow in an attempt to force the wretched mother to name the raiders and their hiding places.
Retaliation was swift; a few days later a troop of Confederate soldiers made its way to Shelton Laurel in search of the raiders. The result was the Shelton Laurel Massacre, in which 13 men and boys (some as young as 13 and 14; most, if not all, non-participants in the raid) were rounded up and executed. Women, some elderly, were tied to trees and whipped when they would not say where their men were; an infant was laid in the snow in an attempt to force the wretched mother to name the raiders and their hiding places.
Civil war -- brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor. The families of the victims of the massacre knew the killers. And for years, bitter resentment simmered, breaking out now and then in private vengeance. Over a hundred years after the Civil War and the Shelton Laurel Massacre, our county still was known to many as "Bloody Madison.
This is the story
I’m trying to tell.
My journey as a
novelist began in 2000 when I took a writing class…. Signs in the Blood, my first Elizabeth Goodweather book, was
published in 2005, more followed. With the publication last year of Under the Skin, my sixth novel, I found
myself ready for a change of direction and, as well, for a bit of a hiatus . .
. an escape from the pressure of a deadline, a time to recharge the batteries.
And I wanted to
stretch myself a bit – to move away from the murder mystery which, with my
amateur sleuth, was becoming a little embarrassing – the dread Jessica Fletcher
syndrome – ‘What, she’s found another
body?’
But I wasn’t ready
to move from the setting – my beloved mountains. The problem was, as I was
recently reminded, in how to find the universal in the local. I think that the
Shelton Laurel Massacre is perfect for this, the event that is both the
culmination of other events and the catalyst for others yet to come.
Just now, in this
contentious election season, I find myself marveling at the things that divide
us as a nation, wondering how people I personally know to be good and decent
people can think so differently about the issues at stake in the election. And
I realize that these are the same questions the folks of Madison County had way
back then, that the story of a long ago, local tragedy can speak to timeless
and universal questions.
I’m writing without
the safety net of a contract – or the goad of a deadline. And I don’t know when
it’ll be finished – or, indeed, if it’ll be published. There are no guarantees.
But I believe this is the story I’ve been called to tell.
